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With the newly released AIR 3.2 SDK, you can take advantage of Stage3D and achieve (near) native performance on iOS devices. As an example, I get a steady 58 frames per second on an iPad 2 when rendering 400 Sprites with Starling (Sprite size: 81×140 pixels).

However, getting Flash ready to export to your iOS device and take advantage of Starling is a bit of a challenge. You need to overcome these two challenges:

Overlay the AIR 3.2 SDK onto Flash CS 5.5

Get your app to use the “direct” render mode, which is required by Starling

Starling requires a render mode of “direct.”
Unfortunately, Flash CS 5.5 doesn’t currently support the ability to choose this render mode when building for iOS.
See here: http://screencast.com/t/bJicMLHPevq

The solution is a bit of a hack.
You need to alter your app’s XML file and then make the file read only for PC, or locked on a Mac.

Open your Flash project’s XML file.
As an example, my FLA is called “starlingIpadTest.fla”, so the app XML file is called “starlingIpadTest-app.xml”.
See here: http://screencast.com/t/fwceyJ76iZ

Look for the <renderMode> tag. Set the render mode to “direct” like so:
<renderMode>direct</renderMode>

9. Remove (back up to somewhere) any other iOS XML file that already exists in <FLASH CS5.5 DIR>\Common\Configuration\Players\
You can have multiple Android XML files here, but not iOS. I have no idea why.

That’s it.
You can now build to iOS with AIR 3.2 and take advantage of Stage3D!